Reaper
by Gunner3284
Summary: What if Beckett wasn't the only one to lose a loved one to the Bracken conspiracy? What if someone else lost a loved one, and decided to pursue Bracken from the other side of things, the less-than-legal side? Story is rated M for a reason, and several chapters will be rewrites of previous episodes from the series. And I'm gonna work on the summary later.


**I would first like to apologize to all my Fatality fans. I've hit major writer's block on it, and this idea won't leave my head, so I'm going to start on this Castle fanfic. I'll be back to working on Fatality as soon as I can. Now to this story. Some of the chapters will be rewrites of actual episodes in the series, and this story will follow the timeline of Beckett chasing her mom's killer, and the last chapter will come when that plotline is finished in the series. So this could end up being an incredibly long story. But I don't know yet. This is just the prologue, so I won't make any promises yet.**

**August 12, 2004**

**40 miles northeast of Kabul, Afghanistan**

"It's about time they bring us in. How long have we been out here?" Gibson started from the back seat of the humvee.

"Couple weeks. Thats what recon's about, Wreck. Except when you don't have shit to show for it." Jackson said from next to Gibson, frustrated.

"Calm down, Trigger. At least now we'll never have to come back here." Carter said from the drivers seat. Their Ranger team had just finished a month-and-a-half long recon mission in a large section of mountains northeast of Kabul. They were now taking their two humvees back to their FOB east of Kabul. They were currently driving alongside a small nameless village.

"Hey, Reaper, how much longer til we get to-" Gibson never got to finish his sentence. An RPG streaked into the front humvee, blowing it clear off the road, and throwing all the occupants even further.

"Holy shit! Reaper, get us out of here, now!" Esposito yelled as he climbed onto the machine gun atop the humvee. Carter struggled to keep the humvee under control, but when another RPG struck the ground right in front of the humvee, he lost control, and the humvee drove into one of the buildings on the edge of the village. Esposito was thrown out of the humvee into the building. As he came to and sat up, he saw Gibson crouching next to the humvee, shooting at one of the nearby buildings. Carter was still stuck inside the humvee, and Jackson was dead in the back of the humvee.

"Espo! Help me get out of this damn truck!" Carter called out. Esposito jumped down and jerked the driver side door open. Esposito looked down and saw that the crash had caused the engine block to push into the cab, and one of Carter's legs was stuck underneath it. Esposito grabbed his leg and pulled, but it wouldn't budge. "Alright, fuck. Espo, go. Get Gibson out of here, I'll figure a way out."

"Hell no, John! No man left behind, remember?" Esposito said as he gave the debris on Carter's leg another pull.

"Damnit, Javi, there's no time to argue! Go, get the hell away! That's an order!" Carter yelled in Esposito's face. After a moment of hesitation, Esposito nodded and ran around towards Gibson. The last Esposito saw of Carter was him desperately trying to pry his leg out from under the debris.

"C'mon, Wrecker, we gotta move! Get to the other humvee, and we'll radio for evac there!" Esposito turned for one last look at Carter, just in time to see the RPG user launch a rocket right into the humvee. The truck turned into a fireball. "NO!" Esposito screamed. He turned and ran after Gibson, stopping when he'd reached the cover of the humvee. "GodDAMNIT!" Esposito screamed before turning around and letting loose a flurry of rounds at the insurgents.

"Command, this is Romeo-Two-Seven, we are pinned down near a village in grid square India-Golf-six-two-five. At least eight casualties, possible wounded. We need immediate extract, over!" Gibson shouted into the radio before laying down a hail of bullets himself.

"Copy that, Two-Seven, extract is on the way, ETA ten mikes, over." The radio sounded.

"Negative on that, Command, there's only two of us left, and an unknown number of hostiles! We need extract now, over!." Esposito yelled into the radio. "Wrecker, I saw two guys on the roof of the two story building on the right, can you get a shot?"

"Negative, they're in cover. RPG boy's gotta be there. We need to find out where the rest of them are." Gibson replied, looking around the overturned humvee. Esposito turned back and started to reload when he saw two of the men from the overturned humvee start to move.

"Wrecker, I see Yankee and Rex moving, cover me!" Esposito yelled before running out towards Lieutenant Rick Gardner, a.k.a. Rex. Esposito picked him up and carried him on his back to the humvee. Setting him down, he started providing cover fire so Gibson could go for Sergeant Drake. Just as Gibson set Yankee down against the humvee, a hail of machine gun fire rained down on the humvee from the village. Hundreds of rounds ricocheted off of the humvee, and Esposito could barely make out the radio over the noise.

"Romeo-Two-Seven, this is Warlord-Two-Two, coming in from the south, do you copy." Esposito grabbed the radio.

"Warlord, we are damn glad to hear you! We're in cover behind an overturned humvee about thirty meters southeast of the road. There's a large number of hostiles in the village, multiple machine guns and at least one RPG." Espo yelled into the radio before blindfiring a few rounds around the humvee.

"Copy all Two-Seven. Watch your heads, boys, we're bringin' the pain!" The pilot just finished before a massive helicopter darted over them, turning around high behind the village. The door gunners opened up on the village, and after a few passes, and several thousand rounds of ammunition, all the shooting from the village stopped.

"Warlord, give us a few minutes to check for wounded." Gibson said as he walked out towards the only two guys unaccounted for. Esposito jogged over to the other humvee to see if Carter had made it out. The humvee was a mangled, smoldering mess when Esposito got there, but his fears were confirmed when he saw the body in the front seat, burnt to a crisp by the fire from the RPG.

"Yo Espo, both Titan and Hitman are dead. Come on, let's get Rex and Yankee on the chopper so we can get the hell outta here." Gibson said over the radio. After another second of silent mourning, Esposito turned and started towards the descending chopper.

But as Esposito rode the sky away from the unfortunate grave of his best friend, he neglected to realize that the back seat was empty. And if he had checked the dog tags on the body, he would have seen that they weren't the tags of his friend. They were the tags of PFC Ryan Jackson, not of MSgt. John Carter.

**Okay, yes, I concede that the ending had room for improvement. But come on, it wasn't THAT bad, was it? Review if you like, I probably won't have the first chapter up for a week or two, but trust me, it'll be both longer and far better than this prologue was. In fact, this was just to set up the story, along with some character background. So be prepared. Until then, Gunner3284 bids you farewell.**

**Over and out.**


End file.
